Shopify or Big Cartel??

[AdamLP700]

Hello guys,

I'm starting a new menswear line and want to build an eCommerce site. I was looking at both Shopify and Big Cartel. Big Cartel certainly seems to be the cheaper option but I can't decide as to which of the two would be ideal for me.

Has anyone here built an online store through either of these? If so, how was your experience? Which of these two would you recommend and why?

 

[fisicx]

I've worked with both and I don't like either. I'm not a fan of hosted solutions, they have their uses but by only looking at these two you are limiting your options.

A menswear line may well need functionality better delivered by a standalone platform. The initial costs may be higher but you will benefit in the long run.

 

[hybridmcr]

I work with shopify and bigcommerce. As fisicx says above if you can steer away from a hosted solution all the better.

With shopify we find that on top of the basic fee, we needed more functionality such as an option sidebar (which you will need for colours sizing etc) at $15 per month, a custom invoice editor, custom mailshots and all of the tweaks that would come as standard on more popular systems mounts up to around $90 on a basic package. Excluding SEO software and theme design.
- Lets say you could get all of that for aorund 700 inc design on magento, puts things into perspective?

Bigcommerce is a million times better, though with a more advanced back end for uploading products.. literally hundreds of different options for product and the direct listing of your products to ebay and google shopping, lots of the basic functionality already included plus its fully integrated with Linnworks which we use for listing products and managing our skus (needed with over 1000 skus) this I would highly recommend before porting to an advanced system such as magento.

 

[Paul Norman]

We stock menswear, and many of the 'off the peg' solutions have some limitations.

However, with a decent developer, they can be overcome, although we went with 'none of the above'.

 

[ecenica]

Agree with other wise comments. Really recommend looking at a self-hosted option before opting for either of those two. Apps like WooCommerce, Magento, and PrestaShop are popular choices.

Key benefit over hosted options is you're not locking your business into a proprietary system.

 

[lesliedocherty]

I work with shopify and bigcommerce. As fisicx says above if you can steer away from a hosted solution all the better.

With shopify we find that on top of the basic fee, we needed more functionality such as an option sidebar (which you will need for colours sizing etc) at $15 per month, a custom invoice editor, custom mailshots and all of the tweaks that would come as standard on more popular systems mounts up to around $90 on a basic package. Excluding SEO software and theme design.
- Lets say you could get all of that for aorund 700 inc design on magento, puts things into perspective?

Bigcommerce is a million times better, though with a more advanced back end for uploading products.. literally hundreds of different options for product and the direct listing of your products to ebay and google shopping, lots of the basic functionality already included plus its fully integrated with Linnworks which we use for listing products and managing our skus (needed with over 1000 skus) this I would highly recommend before porting to an advanced system such as magento.

Started With Big Cartel, only moved because of the limit to 100 products, loved it, but moved on.

Went to Big Commerce, i loved it, but the other person didn't like it and his pals used Shopify, so we had to move to Shopify

Used Shopify, liked it but the extra costs made it less appealing, i didn't like using it

 

[Dejay1788]

We use shopify. We had zero idea of how to make a website / store when we started and found it incredibly easy to do so with shopify, however as said before the fee's can be quite high.

 

[silentjay]

Had to chime in here, for the love of god stay away from WooCommerce, the idea of using an e-commerce plugin awkwardly rammed into a flawed CMS riddled with security issues is just nuts.

If you're just taking a punt I don't see the harm in using something hosted but have a plan in place to move to something custom as soon as you start getting popular as otherwise you'll get murdered on monthly fees. They make all their profit on large shops unwilling, too lazy or too scared to move onto their own platform

 

[fisicx]

.... the idea of using an e-commerce plugin awkwardly rammed into a flawed CMS riddled with security issues is just nuts.

Riddled with security issues?

The security issues come from a badly configured installation not the platform itself.

 

[silentjay]

Riddled with security issues?

The security issues come from a badly configured installation not the platform itself.

You're joking right? New vulnerabilities are constantly being discovered all the time in the core WordPress framework and also in its plugins and themes. Correctly configuring it won't save you. I've had the misfortune of coding WordPress plugins myself, it's one big steaming pile of....which I would never install on any of my servers again.

 

[fisicx]

I've got a server with a whole bunch of client sites. All wordpress and all safe and secure. Only one site ever had a problem and that was only because they installed a plugin which slowed everything to a crawl. There are vunrebilities on most platforms, for example: https://arstechnica.com/security/20...-of-e-commerce-merchants-at-risk-of-takeover/

Maybe your issues with WP were the themes and plugins you used not the cores WP files.

 

[silentjay]

There are vulnerabilities on all platforms. Doesn't stop WordPress being one of the biggest piles of turds out there. Even just yesterday hackers managed to deface 100,000 sites due to an issue in the core which you seem to think is secure.

Any decent developer can see that the codebase is just hack after hack. Let's not even get started on the poor quality of 90% of its plugins.

 

[lesliedocherty]

Question was easy, Big Cartel or Shopify

 

[Food From Cyprus]

We have not used either but I would suggest to also look at Prestashop.

 

[silentjay]

We have not used either but I would suggest to also look at Prestashop.

Good call I'd go with PrestaShop over the others mentioned.

 

[bigspender]

Hi Adam,

I've used both. The main difference is the capability of the platform vs price. Since both of them are really easy to use.

BigCartel is dead simple, but you won't be able to add anything special to it like cart abandonment triggers, notes on customers, marketplace integrations, etc.

Shopify has a world full of apps which you can install. The thing is that it costs more for the monthly fee.

In my opinion, Shopify is worth it since you can handle a very big store on the platform without needing to replatform. BigCartel, you'd probably have to move after getting decent sales beyond a 1 person operation.

Was there something specific on your mind?

Cheers,

Ben

 

[benjaminjones]

Shopify for starting out. Bigcommerce for more established business

 

[Novevan]

I am not so familiar with BigCartel, but I know that Shopify is easy to use.

For me, I would like to select wordpress. It is also not so complicated, I think!

 

[Cart2Cart]

Hi there,

Both, Big Cartel and Shopify, are the web-based platforms that widely popular because of the simple-to-use interface and lower-level pricing editions for small businesses. However, Shopify gets the upper hand over Big Cartel in terms of the several aspects:

• Shopify comes on top with the variety of design ideas. With over 60 beautiful themes to choose from, you can easily customize the look of your e-store with a live editor or HTML/CSS editors. Even though there is a possibility to edit and customize the Big Cartel’s themes, the platform obtains only 13 templates.
  
  
• Shopify App Store includes more than 1500 integrations that range from shipping and inventory integrations to social media and marketing tools. Big Сartel comprises far fewer apps.
  
  
• Shopify offers 24/7 technical and customer assistance via phone, email, a discussion forum, and support center. Big Cartel includes just the email support during the business hours.

Due to the above-mentioned argumentations, a number of companies tend to move data from Big Cartel to Shopify via Cart2Cart. The automated migration tool transfers the entities fast and securely without any technical skills or copy/ pasting activities. The service guarantees the total uptime of the current solution, so you keep selling the products.

Hope it helps!

Kind Regards,
Cart2Cart